WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump told the American people Saturday that there is "no reason to panic" about the new coronavirus, which claimed its first victim inside the United States. The White House also announced new restrictions on international travel to prevent the virus's spread.
Trump spoke moments after the death in Washington state was announced.
"This is very serious stuff," he said, while also insisting that criticism of his administration's handling of the virus was part of a "hoax."
Trump appeared at a news conference in the White House briefing room with Vice President Mike Pence and top public health officials to announce that the U.S. was banning travel to Iran and urging Americans not to travel to regions of Italy and South Korea where the virus has been prevalent.
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He said 22 people in the U.S. had been stricken by the coronavirus and that one had died and four were deemed "very ill." Additional cases were "likely," he added.
Trump said he was considering additional restrictions, including closing the U.S. border with Mexico in response to the virus's spread. But he later added: "This is not a border that seems to be much of a problem right now."
Travel to Iran is already quite limited, though some families are allowed to travel there on visas. And travel from Iran also is already severely restricted because it's one of the seven initial countries on Trump's travel ban list. The existing travel ban on Iran would extend to any foreign citizen who had been in Iran in the past 14 days, around the time the coronavirus began to spread in that country.
Trump described the Washington fatality as someone who had a high medical risk before contracting the virus. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there was "no evidence of link to travel" abroad in the case of the person who died.
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Jeffrey Duchin, the chief health officer for Seattle and King County, Wash., said the death occurred at EvergreenHealth hospital in Kirkland, Wash. The patient was described as a man in his 50s.
Dr. Frank Riedo, medical director of Infection Control at EvergreenHealth, said local hospitals are seeing people with severe coronavirus symptoms and that it's probable there are more cases in the community.
STATES' STEPS
Concern has risen since late Friday when health officials in Washington state, Oregon and California reported new cases among people who have not traveled recently to countries hit hard by the outbreak or come into contact with anyone known to have the virus. Public health officials refer to such a situation as community transmission.
The governor of Washington declared a state of emergency Saturday. More than 50 people in a nursing facility are sick and being tested for the virus.
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Gov. Jay Inslee directed state agencies to use "all resources necessary" to prepare for and respond to the coronavirus. The declaration also allows the use of the Washington National Guard, if necessary.
The U.S. has more than 60 confirmed cases. Trump's tally appeared to exclude cases of Americans repatriated from China or evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
The Washington case was the first death in the U.S., but the patient was not first American to die. A 60-year-old U.S. citizen died in Wuhan, China, in early February.
Trump said healthy Americans should be able to recover if they contract the virus.
He encouraged Americans not to alter their daily routines. Trump said the country is "super prepared" for a wider outbreak, adding that "there's no reason to panic at all."
The president also said he would meet with pharmaceutical companies at the White House on Monday to discuss efforts to develop a vaccine to counter the virus.
Most coronavirus cases result in mild symptoms, including coughing and fever, though some can become more serious and lead to pneumonia. Older people, especially those with chronic illnesses such as heart or lung disease, are more vulnerable. Health officials think the virus spreads mainly from droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes, similar to how the flu spreads.
The number of coronavirus cases in the United States is considered small. But convinced that they will grow, health agencies are ramping up efforts to identify those who might be sick.
To achieve more rapid testing capacity, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a policy Saturday enabling laboratories to use tests they develop. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said his agency is "rapidly responding and adapting to this dynamic and evolving situation."
The California Department of Public Health said Friday that the state will receive enough kits from the CDC to test up to 1,200 people a day for the virus -- a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom complained to federal health officials that the state had already exhausted its initial 200 test kits.
Trump spoke a day after he had denounced criticism of his response to the threat as a "hoax" cooked up by his political opponents. Speaking at a rally Friday in South Carolina, he accused Democrats of "politicizing" the coronavirus threat and boasted about preventive steps he's ordered in an attempt to keep the virus that originated in China from spreading in the United States. Those steps include barring entry by most foreign citizens who recently visited China.
"They tried the impeachment hoax. ... This is their new hoax," Trump said of Democratic denunciations of his administration's coronavirus response.
Trump said Saturday that he was not trying to minimize the threat of the virus.
"Again, the hoax was used in respect to Democrats and what they were saying," he said.
After global markets plunged last week because of concerns about the virus's effect on the global economy, Trump predicted they will bounce back, and he encouraged the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.
"The markets will all come back," he said. "I think the Fed has a very important role, especially psychological. If you look at it, the Fed has a massive impact."
EFFORTS ABROAD
More than 85,000 people worldwide have contracted the virus, with deaths topping 2,900.
The list of countries touched by the virus climbed to nearly 60, with Ireland and Ecuador among the countries reporting their first cases Saturday.
South Korea, the second-hardest-hit country after China, reported 376 new cases Saturday -- the highest daily jump since the country confirmed its first patient in late January. Its case total has risen to 3,526.
Italian authorities said their country now has more than 1,100 coronavirus cases, with 29 deaths so far.
Iran is preparing for the possibility of "tens of thousands" of people getting tested for the virus as the number of confirmed cases spiked again Saturday, an official said. So far, the virus and the covid-19 illness it causes have killed 43 people out of 593 confirmed cases in Iran.
Researchers working to better understand the virus reported that the death rate may be lower than initially feared as more mild cases are counted.
A study by Chinese researchers published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzing 1,099 patients at more than 500 hospitals throughout China calculated a death rate of 1.4%, substantially lower than earlier studies that focused on patients in Wuhan, where the outbreak started and has been most severe.
Assuming there are many more cases with no symptoms or very mild symptoms, "the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%," U.S. health officials wrote in an editorial in the journal.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a $2.5 billion emergency economic package to help fight the virus.
Abe, who last week announced a plan to close all schools for more than a month through the end of the academic year, said the emergency package includes financial support for parents and their employers affected by the closures.
In isolated, sanctions-hit North Korea, leader Kim Jong Un called for stronger efforts to guard against covid-19, saying there will be "serious consequences" if the illness spreads to the country.
China has seen a slowdown in new infections and on this morning reported 573 new cases over the previous 24 hours, along with 35 additional deaths. The city at the epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan, accounted for the bulk of both.
In France, the archbishop of Paris advised parish priests not to administer communion by placing the sacramental bread in worshippers' mouths. Instead, priests were told to place the bread in their hands. The French government canceled large indoor events.
Saudi Arabia closed off Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina to foreign pilgrims, disrupting travel for thousands of Muslims already headed to the kingdom and potentially affecting plans later this year for millions more ahead of the fasting month of Ramadan and the annual hajj pilgrimage.
Tourist arrivals in Thailand are down 50% compared with a year ago. And in Italy -- which has the most reported cases of any country outside Asia -- hotel bookings are falling, and Premier Giuseppe Conte raised the specter of an economic recession.
Information for this article was contributed by Darlene Superville, Zeke Miller, Andrew Selsky, David Klepper, Mari Yamaguchi, Kevin Freking, Rachel La Corte, Gillian Flaccus, Joe McDonald, Jon Gambrell, John Leicester, Deb Riechmann, Adam Geller, Joseph Pisani, Edith M. Lederer, Hyung-jin Kim, Tong-hyung Kim, Renata Brito, Giada Zampano, Frances D'Emilio, Paul Wiseman, Christopher Rugaber, Marilynn Marchione and Frank Jordans of The Associated Press; and by William Wan, Anne Gearan, Miriam Berger and Katie Mettler of The Washington Post.
A Section on 03/01/2020